Dime Beauty is sharpening its focus on fragrance.
Stay Awhile, the brand’s newest launch, is rolling out to existing distribution (Ulta Beauty and Amazon) as well as the brand’s own channels for $62 per unit.
The launch is happening in lockstep with a lowered price architecture for certain products occurring at the end of May, as well as a broader repackaging of its existing scents.
“Baylee Relf, and her husband, who had a formulation, wanted to develop a clean skin care line. They grew it to $100 million as an influencer brand, and we have best-in-class retention,” said chief executive officer Cyndi Isgrig. “We have the loyalest customer but only 7 percent brand recognition. We entered into Ulta in 2023 and we’re in 1,000 doors. I became CEO in March of last year, and we are no longer just a [direct-to-consumer] native brand.”
One of the brand’s key tenets is elevated accessibility, she said, and fragrance is paramount to that strategy.
“We’ve obviously had clean skin care, clean body care. But clean fragrance, founded by a master aesthetician, that is a big deal. It’s all about skin wellness,” she said, adding that fragrance “is a key category in our skin wellness positioning and being able to have a product that, you know, we’re a skin care brand that is extended into fragrance. It’s really all about skin wellness. Fragrance is a part of mental wellness.”
Dime launched its first fragrance in 2021, and it comprises roughly a third of the company’s business. “We haven’t launched a new scent since early 2024, and part of this whole conversation is the fact that we have such a great group of community and loyalists and customers,” said Bernice Merlini, the brand’s chief brand officer. “It’s a warm, gourmand scent, and it’s meant to feel comforting and warm, and it’s something that can transition well.”
While the brand’s core audience on social is squarely Millennial, Gen Z has been entering the brand via its fragrances. The gourmand is at a friendly price point for a prestige fragrance, which was intentional on the brand’s part.
“We are really leaning into elevated accessibility,” Isgrig said, nodding to the repackaging of the fragrances as well as the shift in price for certain stock keeping units.
“We are reducing the price of 17 of our products by an average of 20 percent,” Isgrig said. “While everyone is increasing their prices in this environment, we are actually intentionally decreasing our prices so that we can actually have a structure that is more accessible. All of our cleansers will be less than $30, all of our serums and moisturizers will be less than $40 and really just making sure that we are leaning into that value.”